“Relatively recently, there was a series in which a chess club played a very important role” is how I was planning to start this blog…
CIPC #211: 8×8: A chess sonata in 8 movements
We have encountered Marcel Duchamp before on this blog, seated on a roof somewhere in Paris, playing chess with Man Ray. Today, we are dealing…
CIPC #210: Futurama S3 E14, Time keeps on slippin’
A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog post about The Simpsons. It still remains, and will probably remain forever, one of the most…
CIPC #209: Monsters S2 E2, Portrait of the Artist
If I had been a little smarter, I would have done this episode in the Halloween season, but I’m not so I haven’t. So yeah,…
CIPC #207: Norwich union ad
Norwich! The great city of Norwich! Its cathedral, its mustard, its football team, its famous sons Lord Nelson and Alan Partridge,1 its union. Yes, its…
CIPC #206: Chess in ‘Popular science’
Nothing is quite as unsettling to a scientist than his subject becoming self aware. Imagine the biologist that suddenly finds his fruit flies peering at…
CIPC #205: Father Brown S2 E1, The ghost in the machine
I have sung the praises of Chesterton’s Father Brown stories before, so I will now just suffice by saying that I still stand by those…
CIPC #204: B.C. June 9th, 2013
Last year, we started with some high-brow Culture with a capital C. As there is a widely supported consensus that 2020 was not one of…
CIPC extra: The best and worst of 2020
Never before have people been so eager for a year to end. All because they cannot wait for my review of the year. I can…
CIPC #203: Asterix Vol.4, Asterix the gladiator
Sic transit gloria mundi! There is no better way to summarise the fate of the Asterix series. It started all the way back in 1959…